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SotW House Rules
These are all the house rules on our campaign. Setting Changes The setting is mostly the same. The single greatest difference is that only a precious few Celestial Exalts have ever died of old age, as the average lifespan is around 5000 years. Kejop Chejak has the distinction of being the only Exalt never to have reincarnated, and holds memories clear back to the first Exaltations. As problems arise from this, I will deal with them, but so far it has only allowed me additional plot options. It's worth noting that Brigid, Arcadi, and Amyana were all First Exaltations as well. Kendik Arkadi was a Dawn Caste rather than an Eclipse Caste. Not much of a stretch as he was supposed to be a war leader. Also his name was optionally spelled with a "c", because I don't feel like changing all my notes. Specialties There are no limits on the number of specialties you can take, so long as you take no identical specialty more than three times. Only one specialty can apply to a given roll. For example, you can take three ranks in Melee (Pointy Sticks), two ranks in Melee (Flaming Rodents), and one rank in Melee (Giant Squid). Then, if you're attacking a giant squid with a pointy stick, you add only three specialty dice. Virtues and Willpower Virtues may be raised at a cost of (current rating + 1) XP and no training time. Your starting Willpower is six. Willpower may be increased at a cost of (current rating) XP, no training time. Channeling a Virtue no longer costs a point of Willpower. Combos Combo rules are retooled. You get one free Combo. This free Combo may have any number of Charms. You may elect to save this Combo until later. Combos can be learned at a flat cost of 2 XP and three days of training time per charm in the Combo. Combos still take a point of Willpower to activate as normal. Please name your combos, and make it sound cool. These are your character's super-powered signature moves, after all. EXCEPTION: Charms with an ability score required of 1 require only one XP to add, such as Excellencies. Still three days. Adding to a combo costs nothing more than it would have to make that charm part of the Combo in the first place. If you want to change the name once it's upgraded that's cool too. "Uber Solar Pwnage Combo Mark III." Please don't name your combo that. Thunderbolt Attack Prana costs only one flat XP to add, as the combo is considered a new signature move. It's worth noting that it can supplement things like Martial Arts attacks or even a Performance attack if someone was weird enough to deal damage by attacking with a performance roll somehow. Anything that deals damage. War attacks, too. Its use in a combo is optional, which is different from the normal supplemental rules, because I don't want to suddenly restrict use of a combo to a certain style of attacks. If people look like they're hurting for willpower I may tweak things, but as it is everyone's running out of motes first, so the WP cost doesn't really matter. Customization Custom artifacts may be created. This needs my approval, and you can expect custom artifacts to probably be slightly weaker than ones straight from the book. Custom hearthstones are slightly encouraged, and need my approval. Expect to find a large number of custom artifacts and hearthstones of my own creation; I'm looking forward to seeing you try to discern how to use them and figure out what they are. One important kind of custom artifact is the Essence Battery. These typically store motes, though are somewhat inefficient to fill up, and can only spend these motes on a particular type of expenditure, such as sorcery or a specific Charm. They typically involve Black Jade or Soulsteel. Run these by me and I'll see what I can brew up. Custom spells are fine, but need my approval and likely will be limited in power; cosmetically editing existing spells to alter their flavor to better suit your character is encouraged. Custom Charms are probably "no", unless you have a really good reason. Every spell and every Charm is slightly different for the person who uses them; for instance, Death of Obsidian Butterflies is just as likely to be Death of Ivory Doves. Same spell, even learned the same, but just as anima banners are different, spells manifest differently. Charms are less dramatic in their differences; for example, a big muscular guy using Strength Increasing Exercise gets all big like The Hulk, but a lithe young female Exalt simply displays superhuman strength. NPC Writeups Writing up a character will get them put in the game as an NPC. This is the encouraged route for getting Allies and Contacts. I need their full statistics as well as a solid, detailed backstory. I've been a little lax in this lately, but I want to kind of crack down; a concept alone is not enough to get the XP. I need a backstory, motivations, connections, and a psychological profile, along with all the mechanics. Willpower Regeneration After a full night's sleep, you may roll a number of dice equal to your highest virtue and regain that much Willpower. A full day of downtime, including a day spent simply traveling, with both night's rest, fully restores your Willpower. Powerup Combos The following charms are now considered "Special", Combo-OK, but you can write the "real" rules on your character sheet: * Infinite Ability Mastery * ARCHERY ** Immaculate Golden Bow ** Inexhaustible Bolts of Solar Fire ** Solar Flare Methodology * MELEE ** Glorious Solar Saber ** Fivefold Bulwark Stance * RESISTANCE ** Whirlwind Armor-Donning Prana ** Hauberk-Lightening Gesture ** Glorious Solar Plate ** Iron Kettle Body ** Battle Fury Focus ** Bloodthirsty Sword-Dancer Spirit * ATHLETICS ** Increasing Strength Exercise * DODGE ** Flow Like Blood * STEALTH ** Easily Overlooked Presence Method ** Mental Invisibility Technique * RIDE ** Phantom Steed ** Flashing Thunderbolt Steed ** Sometimes Horses Fly Approach * MARTIAL ARTS ** Every Martial Arts Form Charm ** Essence Fangs and Scales Technique ** Pearlescent Filigree Defense ** Blessing of Righteous Solar Spark Meditation ...Any non-stackable scene length Simple MA charm, there's another 20 or so This creates a special kind of combo that can be activated reflexively as part of a Join Battle action. This also means that any of the above charms that increase Join Battle pools apply to that roll. Though the effects take place as soon as the battle begins, visually imagine the effects of the Combo (such as anima flare) as taking place as you make your first action. That's what's actually happening; it's just impossible for fighting in an RPG to be truly simultaneous. All "Special" charms in the combo MUST be activated; however, if you include normal Reflexive charms they may be activated at your option as battle begins. Meaning Graceful Crane and Monkey Leap and whatnot can be included if you wish, but if you're low on motes you don't need them (or they're already active) you're fine too. If somehow a "Special" charm is already active before the battle starts, you don't have to spend the motes. You can activate a single "Special" charm as a battle starts instead of a combo. You can use defensive charms (Seven Shadow Evasion) between using a Powerup Combo and taking your first action. Craft All five Craft (Element) are instead treated as a single Craft, the originals (such as Craft (Fire)) are now considered Specialties. Crafting more exotic works, such as Magitech and Genesis, requires Crafting Degrees which work similarly to thaumaturgy. These can also be taken as specialties. Thanks to Alexa for the idea. Overwhelming Overwhelming weapons add their Overwhelming damage / 3 to their wielder's Essence, round up, and that is the new minimum damage. If this is lower than the original Overwhelming rating, use the original. Seeing as this value doesn't change too often, it should be easy to keep track of. Sorcery The Charms for Sorcery, when finished, grant the appropriate Countermagic and Summon Demon for that Circle for free. Once Banish Demon has been learned for one circle, it may be cast at any circle the caster has access to. Spells cost 6 XP if favored. HOWEVER, it is now impossible to learn new spells without a source of some sort. I intend to make these fairly common, and I would appreciate knowing which spells you are interested in so I can drop a few. Also know that I intend to invent spells or tweak them so that discovering them is a realistic surprise. The Terrestrial Spells from the Corebook can all be found in most academies in most large cities, along with a couple oddballs; if you want to get at them, that's something you're going to have to figure out. Casting spells is reduced by one Shape Sorcery action across the board. Terrestrial spells may be cast as a Speed 5 action; Celestial spells need one Shaping action and Solar spells need two. Also, there is a potent custom artifact useful to sorcerers, to offset some of the "combat spells are kinda lousy and expensive" issue. Hand of Rainbows: artifact 4, commit 10 (general). Based on the Whimsical Creation. Mechanical effects identical. A 3-dot (weaker) version exists for Dragon-Blooded sorcerers. Artifact Creation We're using mostly the canon rules, but I'm going to be pretty lenient for what counts as an "exotic component." I'd rather you use things that have storyline and emotional significance than just run out into the Wyld and form a bunch of weird things. Big fan of Fair Folk hearts though. Principle of Motion Principle of Motion (a charm for things other than Exalts) can be used up to a limit of Essence times in a given action. This pretty much affects only the stuff I'm throwing at you, and I was already roughly following that formula because it's silly to have them dump all their actions at the start of combat and then suddenly be so much weaker while you pound on them. Permanent Essence Increases Increasing Essence to 3 has no training time and may be done with 16 XP as normal. Increasing Essence to 4 requires 24 XP, and requires three day's meditation and fasting in the inner sanctum of your First Age tomb, at the end of which you will receive a vision. Increasing Essence to 5 requires 32 XP and something special that shall be revealed in due time. Auto Successes, Negative Pool This is fairly obscure, but any time there's automatic successes and the die pool is negative, the success cancels out negative two dice. If the die pool is odd, this translates to rolling one die and adding any remaining successes. If you don't know why I'm bringing this up, good. Social Conflict Social Conflict will be used in place of normal social combat rules. Mass Combat Mass Combat rules are here. Category:Sunlight on the Water Category:SotW Rules